Posted by Ron Jooss
Doug Richardson and GTE Federal Credit Union in Tampa, Fla., get it. Doug is VP/marketing at GTE FCU. He used to work for Penske Speedways. The Penske name is synonymous with auto racing, including NASCAR. Nobody knows marketing like NASCAR.
A couple months back I spoke to Doug about how GTE FCU snared Tampa Bay Rays star Evan Longoria as spokesperson for its U22 account for teens and young adults.
This week I received a press release that GTE FCU had recruited another buzzworthy young spokesperson. “Suite Caroline” Kudelko, a 12-year-old singer, songwriter and recording artist, has recently opened a U22 account and will be blogging about her finances as well as her career, as she tours and performs. According to the release, “Suite Caroline” has attracted the interest of several well-known recording artists and music industry executives in Nashville and Los Angeles. Her MySpace page has received over 650,000 visitors.
Now, Suite Caroline may or may not be the next Miley Cyrus, but my guess is that most 12-year-old girls will identify with her image and—just as importantly—virtually every mother will approve of it.
The reality is, it’s hard to make kids and young adults under 22 identify with financial services when image has so much—some of us would say too much—impact. But add a sports star or a pop music link and suddenly you seem pretty cool. (Is it still cool to say cool?) After all, this is the age that has given us American Idol, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and even this YouTube smash, when celebrity comes from every fringe of society. Celebrity and good entertainment matter to marketers in the sense that they might give young people pause to take notice of your credit union amid all the thousands of other messages that try to interrupt their senses every day.
I asked Doug what he learned at Penske Speedways that serves him in his credit union marketing role. He said that to sell sponsorships to consumer products companies for millions of dollars, it was necessary to build up the elements around racing—the speed of the cars, the excitement of the races and the passion of the fans, for example. “You had to explain the value of an intangible. I think that helps in explaining financial services,” he says.
Doug notes that he’s backed by a great team and solid products at GTE FCU. I think most credit unions can make the same claim. With a little imagination, maybe they can create the same excitement that Doug and his team do.
